


Hold You To It

by smc_27



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-18
Updated: 2015-11-18
Packaged: 2018-05-02 06:56:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5238719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smc_27/pseuds/smc_27
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I decided to flip a coin about every decision in my life for a week. That's how we ended up on a date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold You To It

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katertots](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katertots/gifts).



Until this very moment, she could chalk it up to stupid rookie agent stuff. Seriously. Her partner likes to fuck around, make jokes and pull stupid, harmless pranks. Locking her out of her computer, telling her the wrong names of other agents so Darcy’ll look like a dumbass. That kind of thing. (The agents are all in on it anyway, so they just laugh at the rookies and it’s not a big deal.) It’s routine squad bullshit and Darcy doesn’t care; everyone goes through it. 

But Darcy’s been late a couple times this month, and just...Look, it’s not totally her fault. The first time someone jumped in front of the subway, and the second time, the elevator in her building broke down with Darcy inside. 

“The next time you’re late, I’m gonna impose a week of coin flipping to decide everything from what you eat to what you wear. Any decision? Coin flip.”

Darcy scoffs. “Is that SHIELD’s official ‘stop being late to work, you asshole’ punishment, or?” 

“Nah, pretty much just for my enjoyment.”

Darcy had rolled her eyes and brushed it off as a joke, but then this morning...Well, no, this morning was totally her fault. She slept straight through her alarm and had to shower in record time to even be just five minutes late to headquarters.

Tina was standing there in the office they share, arms crossed and a shitty look on her face, and yeah, okay, Darcy needs to do better.

There’s a quarter sitting on her desk, right there in front of her keyboard, and Darcy just gives Tina a shitty look. 

“Oh, I wasn’t joking,” Tina says, takes her seat at her own desk and sits there with a shit eating grin on her face.

Fuck.

At first it’s just stupid things, thank god. Like what she wants for lunch, and whether or not she’s going to have a fourth coffee at 3:30. Then Tina makes her use the stupid coin to decide whether she’s got to go to the safety briefing, or Tina does. After that, it’s whether or not to go for drinks with everyone or go home like she wants to. Thankfully she wins that one and doesn’t have to endure another couple hours using this fucking quarter as her life coach or whatever. Hell no, she’s not doing it when no one else is around. 

And yeah, she could absolutely tell Tina this is bullshit and the point’s been made and she won’t be late again, but she also knows she was in the wrong and deserves what she’s going through. She got a warning and everything. So yeah, it’s dumb as shit, but at least she’s not getting written up for being late, and she’s definitely going to make sure she’s not late anymore unless she absolutely can’t help it. So, lesson learned or whatever. She can take the punishment.

It’s all good until three days into it, when they’re sitting side by side the boardroom table and all notable SHIELD agents are milling around. Darcy had her eye on that cheese danish, but didn’t feel like doing a coin toss in front of her peers and her superiors, so just left it alone. Tina’s to her right, and Darcy’s checking out Captain Rogers’ ass in his uniform, which like. Whatever. Every single person in this building has done the same damn thing at one point or another. That ass is a national treasure. She’s not even kidding. 

“Okay,” Tina says, leaning over a bit. Darcy doesn’t think anything of it - thinks they might actually talk about _work_ \- until Tina slides the quarter across the boardroom table. “Heads, you ask out Captain Rogers. Tails, Fury.”

The look on Darcy’s face, she knows, is totally incredulous. Come on. 

“Both my superiors. No thanks. Don’t wanna get fired. And you know, this whole thing isn’t just some way for you to embarrass the hell out of me. I’m not gonna ask out Fury.”

Tina kinks her brow and tosses the coin in the air, catches it, and flips it over so it’s on top of her left hand. “Better hope for heads, then, hey, Lewis?”

“I’m not…”

Tina lifts her hand and there’s George Washington’s stupid face.

Captain Rogers takes his seat across from her, smiles at her and then leans back in his chair.

Tina starts laughing at what seems to everyone else to be nothing, and Darcy rolls her eyes and kicks her partner’s ankle under the table. Which isn’t subtle at all. She’s just not going to look at him to see what his reaction is. And then Agent Hill starts talking about this mission and Darcy tries to pay attention to that, not the knot of dread in the pit of her stomach. 

… … …

Look, she’s an adult, okay? She knows she doesn’t have to follow through with this. Or she could tell him about the stupid coin toss thing and get him in on the whole thing, just tell Tina that he said no or cited their positions at work and said it was a bad idea. 

But, well, have you _seen_ that guy? And her life for the past year has been trying to become an Agent, then trying to _stay_ an Agent. She hasn’t exactly had a thriving love life. Not that she thinks he’d go for it, but all she’s saying is she can’t help thinking he’d be a pretty good candidate to break her slump. The guy just _looks_ like he knows how to fuck. Yeah, that whole Captain America thing doesn’t do it for her. The dirt-on-the-face, just-got-back-from-battle, cocky-’cause-I-killed-the-bad-guy soldier? Yeah, that guy has a smirk like he’d make you beg for it, then be smug as fuck when he finally…

Okay, so she’s in a downward spiral here. 

She catches him in the mess the next morning. Yes, she’s early and has time to grab a quick breakfast before heading upstairs for the morning brief. She’s just gotten her oatmeal and coffee and sees him sitting there reading an old hardcover she can’t see the title of, a cup of coffee in front of him. She figures now’s as good a time as any to, you know, ask this potentially career-ending question. 

She sits down across from him and he looks up, smiles and closes his book with his finger between the pages, keeping his spot. 

“Agent Lewis.”

“Hi.” She takes a sip of coffee and gestures to his book. “What are you reading?”

“Treasure Island.” She must look surprised or something, because he just shrugs one shoulder and reaches for his mug. 

This is officially the longest conversation they’ve ever had. 

“I’m rereading Faulkner for the third time. Light in August.” Steve’s brow goes up like he’s impressed. “It’s one of my favourites.”

“I liked that one, too.”

“Get a lot of time to read, Cap?” she teases, and thankfully he laughs, or she’d worry about being insubordinate or something. 

“Not really,” he answers. He closes his book and sets it aside, and she feels awkward now. 

“Sorry I interrupted.”

“No, no,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t mind at all.”

Darcy takes a deep breath, figures it’s now or never. And if he says no, she’ll pick up her tray and finish her breakfast in her office, or something, and then just never make eye contact with him again. Excellent plan.

“Hey, so there’s this really great used book store in my neighbourhood. Maybe we could go together and look around. If you’d be into that,” she says, then watches his eyes as he seems to register what’s happening here. 

He leans forward so there’s no chance of anyone around them hearing. “Are you asking me on a date?”

Darcy shrugs her shoulder and gives him her best flirty smile. “Are you saying yes?”

He just grins and leans back again, and when he gets up to leave, her number is written on the inside cover of his book. 

… … …

Saturday afternoon, after texting to set this whole thing up and hoping neither of them would get called in to work, she’s standing in front of the book store in what she thinks is her cutest outfit. What? He’s only ever seen her in suits, training, and tactical gear. Excuse the fuck out of her for wanting to look like she might actually know how to put a look together that doesn’t scream “I’m ready at any second to go on a super secret covert op” or whatever.

She’s debating going across the street to get a coffee, because she’s early and feels like an idiot standing here doing nothing, but then it’s like he parts the sea of pedestrians on the sidewalk and smiles when he sees her. 

Goddammit, he looks good in jeans. 

“You’re early,” he says, grinning. 

“So are you.”

“Fair enough,” he chuckles, then gestures to the door. “Shall we?”

There’s a joke here about the 40’s and vernacular, but she generally tries not to be an asshole to her dates unless they deserve it. And besides, his hand is pressed against the small of her back as he opens the door for them to step inside. It’s not that she forgets what she was going to say, she just decides not to say it. 

She takes him straight to the classics section; it’s her favourite and she thinks he’ll like it, too. He confesses, as they browse, that he’s never been a Shakespeare fan, but he’s got three separate complete works on his bookshelf at home. One was a gift, and the other two he picked up because he liked the way they looked. She sort of loves that. He reaches for a copy of The Grapes of Wrath, then puts it down again. He’s got really nice hands. She’s noticed them before, sure, but that was more when they were covered in blood or bruises, knuckles split. It’s such a weird contrast to watching how he handles books - carefully, deliberately - that it makes her wonder how he’d handle _her_.

She clears her throat to derail that train of thought, and he looks at her with this really sweet smile, so he obviously has no idea what she was just thinking. If he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t be looking so innocent. 

They wander through the main part of the store, taking turns picking out titles to make each other laugh. It’s totally stupid and silly, but honestly, this might be the best date she’s ever been on. It’s fun, and he’s hilarious, and at one point he curses, and okay, the news of his potty mouth isn’t exactly a secret, but she’s never heard it herself. She likes it, likes the way his lips curve around the word _fuck_ when it rolls off his tongue. 

Yeah, she needs to stop thinking about his tongue. 

“Hey, so there’s this awesome pizza place nearby,” she tells him as they step outside. He just smiles at her and puts his hands in his pockets, which makes him look...It’s just now occurring to her that maybe he was nervous about this, too. “What do you say, Cap?”

He gives her a look, confused, and then just says, “You can call me Steve,” like he thought she already knew that. She hadn’t really thought of it, to be honest. She just...She’s very aware that she’s on a date - a _good_ date - with her superior, and doesn’t want to do something that could affect their working relationship. 

You know, like invite him back to her place for orgasms. The lie there is that that’s _exactly_ what she wants to do.

When he puts his arm around her waist for the walk, she starts thinking he wouldn’t say no if she asked.

“Can I ask you a question?” he says after they’ve ordered. There’s a pitcher of beer between them on the table, and he moves it out of the way; she likes that. She takes a sip from her glass, then nods her head. Hell yeah, she’s a little scared of whatever might come out of his mouth next. “Why did you ask me out?”

This isn’t some insecurity, some ‘aw shucks why me’ moment. She can tell he’s just really confused, probably because they’d never really spoken, save for introductions, and there’s no way he could have known she was even the slightest bit interested. 

Which she didn’t even know she _was_ until she had to flip a fucking coin about it. 

“Do you want a mostly true answer that saves me some potential embarrassment? Or do you want the entirely true answer that will probably make me want to crawl under this table?”

Steve laughs out loud, head thrown back and everything, and says, “Entirely true answer.”

Darcy takes a deep breath and thinks he’s getting way too much enjoyment out of this, considering he hasn’t even heard the story yet. “Long story short, I was late for work and as punishment had to flip a coin to make all my decisions last week.”

Steve furrows his brow, plays with his glass. “And it was - ask me out or don’t ask me out?”

“No,” she laughs. “It was ask you out or ask Fury out.”

“So it was a dare.”

“No!” She sighs again, looks straight across the table at him. He looks hurt, or something, which fuck, she can’t really blame him. She’d be pissed if she heard that story, too. She just wants to be honest with him. Which is not something she feels often, and certainly not something she feels often with men. “Look, this isn’t middle school. I could have just lied and said you’d shot me down.” 

“I wouldn’t do that,” he’s quick to answer, and then his cheeks start flushing pink and _oh_ , that’s kind of fucking adorable. 

“Why not?” she asks, thinking she already knows the answer. 

“I’m not dumb. A beautiful woman has the gumption to ask you on a date, you say yes.” Well fuck. He thinks she’s beautiful. 

“That’s the only reason?” Yeah, she’s pushing him. She wants to watch him squirm a little. Sue her. 

He shrugs his shoulder. “I think you’re sweet.”

Laughing, Darcy manages, “Oh, Steve,” and the smile he gives her makes her want to get their pizza to go and eat it in bed later. “You really don’t know me that well.”

He reaches out, brushes his thumb across her knuckles when he takes her hand. “I want to.”

Yep. Sold. This date wasn’t some stupid game, and he wasn’t just being nice to her because he didn’t know how to say no. He didn’t just come for the book store and stay for the pizza. 

She’s buzzed and happy when they’ve finished their food, happy they didn’t run out of things to talk about and that they can sort of tease each other without anyone getting upset. They had a fun little argument over the bill, and unlike the other assholes she usually dates, when she insisted they split it, he just said, “All right,” and took the cash she offered him after saying he’d put it on his credit card.

They’re standing outside the restaurant and it’s just getting dark out. This is the longest date she’s been on in a while. Probably because she didn’t once want to fake sick and bail, or try to find some other way to cut things short.

Steve has his hand in his pocket and he’s got this look on his face that she can’t read, but thinks is sexy as all get out. 

“I have an idea,” he says, and she’s more than a little intrigued. He pulls a dime out of his pocket and laughs when she rolls her eyes. “Heads, we call it a night. Tails, you come back to my place.”

Darcy feels anticipation shoot down her spine and looks up at him through her lashes, blinks once and feels bold. She shakes her head. 

“Heads, my place. Tails, your place.”

Steve lets out a sound from the back of his throat, pushes his hand into her hair and lowers his lips to hers. So yeah, he probably likes her suggestion. 

They don’t end up flipping the stupid coin. He asks her where she lives, says it’s closer, and doesn’t seem to mind at all when she presses him back against the door and leans up to kiss him as soon as they’re inside.


End file.
